Adding video card memory

Adding video card memory - 10/11/0507:44 PM

HiMy friend and I where discussing the question of whether or not it was possible or not to add more vram to a video card. I have 2 old video cards at home with are 4mb vram on them. Is it possible to add more vram to a video card? if so how do you do it? would you just unsolder the existing memory and replace with a larger memory chip?

Re:Adding video card memory - 10/11/0508:23 PM

It could work that way. But the new VRAM chips would have to be exactly the same as the old ones (except for capacity obviously), and the memory controller on the card would have to be able to deal with more RAM than it currently is. If you can find that out, you should be good to go.

Re:Adding video card memory - 10/29/0503:50 AM

Re:Adding video card memory - 10/29/0505:06 AM

Welcome xbetterforworsex. Anyway, a video card is designed to access the amount of ram given to it by its oem. I wouldnt bother with trying to upgrade. After the grief of intricate soldering, you may find it accesses the same amount or none at all.-maestro

Re:Adding video card memory - 10/29/0505:33 AM

maestro wrote:

Quote:

Welcome xbetterforworsex. Anyway, a video card is designed to access the amount of ram given to it by its oem. I wouldnt bother with trying to upgrade. After the grief of intricate soldering, you may find it accesses the same amount or none at all.-maestro

I agree, though I don't think the question was whether or not it would be economical but if it were possible.

Like Maestro said, a video card is designed to access the amount of ram given to it by it's oem. I don't know if it is possible because I don't think anybody has done it. Frankly, I'm not that savy with a soldering iron to accomplish something of that magnitude.

Re:Adding video card memory - 10/29/0507:05 AM

Thanks for the welcoming. I am interested in this hack well mainly because I love soldering and I have a pretty light hand with it. It seems like it could be possible? But time consuming and a lot of try and try again?

Re:Adding video card memory - 10/29/0507:51 AM

Re:Adding video card memory - 10/29/0507:59 AM

Me and a few friends from work tryed with with a Voodoo 5 AGP. It had 64MB of vRam and we tryed adding 128MB. It worked but Windows didn't let you use more then 64MB. Never got around to build our own driver set. Worked just fine in Linux but really there was no diffrents. Before we tryed DOOM3 as a benchmark before the mod and it was slow as a slug. When we added the memory there was no change. We also tryed it with a few other games with no change in proformance. Thing is it's not worth it, back in the day you were able to add more vRam with the little IC ram chips but then there was a point that it became worthless and just easier and cheaper to buy a new video card.

Re:Adding video card memory - 10/29/0508:09 AM

It's not exactly a video card, but on a Xbox you can solder an additional 64mb of RAM on the board and get it to run with 128mb. Since the board is more intelligent than a video card, it detects it with no problem. With that consideration, you should be able to solder additional RAM onto a video card, though you may need to reflash it so the card knows it's there.

If you have the time and a couple spare video cards to test this on, give it a shot. I'd make sure I have the ROM for the video card, as well as one from the same line with more RAM. You never know until you try.